Dawn came, not with gentle light, but with the harsh, clarifying grey of spent storms. Elara woke to the unfamiliar weight of an arm around her waist, the solid heat of a body pressed against her back. For a disoriented second, she was seventeen again, waking from a nightmare of his cruelty. Then memory returned, visceral and consuming: the taste of him, the scrape of his stubble, the raw, claiming force of him moving inside her.
The guilt was a sickness. It coiled in her stomach, sharp and acidic. It whispered of Liam’s trust, of the fragile peace they’d all built, now shattered by her choice. She’d betrayed him not in a moment of confused passion, but in the cold, sober aftermath of victory. She had chosen the beast over the good man. Again.
Kaelan stirred behind her, his arm tightenin
